Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Grey Ball Of Time

It's a grey morning in Vancouver. The grey outside...tends to amplify the grey inside...for myself...and I suspect...a lot ofother people. An old challenge presents itself once again. How...surrounded by outer and inner grey...the colour of inertia..."been there done that"..."who cares"...and "why should I bother"...to pitch my being towards...brighter...funkier...lifeaffirming actions...or even thoughts. I've had a lot of practice in this area of life...having chosen to shape the colour and content of my days...for a long time...instead of reporting to a 9 to 5 place...to get my directives for the day. This is no sluron those who show so much daily courage in reporting to their various jobs. It's simply that my challenges living life as afree lancer...have been of a different order. Once wrote a song called "Grey Ball of Time"...which is about those times...for a free lancer...when over many days having "sliced your time" well...running out of slices...and coming face to face with thedragon of amorphous time. It is at these times most of all...when your skill at extricating yourself from the "grey ball"...and reaching for something to counteract it...becomes life saving. Let me start my reaching...right now. Some more rehearsals are needed for my recording session tomorrow...which will put my cd...which I play all the parts on...closer to the finishing line...there are good people who have written me...I have to reply to...there's a gig and a party coming up soon...where I'll be seeing some of the people I like...I still can sing and play guitar...ride a bike or walk by the sea...to scratch thesurface of what's available to me...today. I guess that is so much of what life is about...exercising free will...choosing to gowith the grey...which is never far away...or rising and flying...on the wings of all your blessings........................Quester.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Bright Beginnings...Predictable Endings

Over the years...many people have flown by me...scenarios involving my work as an artist...from "let's do a video involvingyour singing"...to..."we want to use some of your music in a film we're doing" etc. etc. The first contacts from these people...are always complimentary...the projects intended spoken about in glowing terms. One out of many of these approaches...actually bears fruit. The rest of the time...the bright beginnings vanish...with the passage of time. What this does...is it causes you...over the years...to react with a certain reserve...to these scenarios offered...knowing you've been down this road before...rather than start doing cart wheels...the moment you are approached. Maybe this is just about the way things work in this world...with people with their own agendas...sending up trial baloons...left...right...and centre...with the hope that one out of many will come to something. I listen politely to these offers...and continue generating my own projects...not based on anyone else's creations...knowing who I can depend on...when the bright project baloons floated by me...have all drifted...out of sight.................................Quester.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Second Beach Afternoon

[Written yesterday afternoon before the rain returned]. I sit on a bench by Second Beach...in the shade of copious leaved treesabove me...looking through six well spaced tree trunks...on to the ocean...and mountains in the distance. In the foregroundthere are children and grown-ups on the beach before me...taking in the sun shine and playing at water's edge. There is abreeze blowing...soft enough to be playful...refreshing the air around me. To my left the water on the bay is twinkling silver...in the middle...a muted silver-blue...and to the right...a lightish blue...etched with pulsing...slightly darker little waves.The mountain ranges to my right are misted in a milky blue. People stroll by on the sea wall path...to and from the tall trees of Stanley Park. The chorus of a song I recently recorded says..."this is as good as it will get"...referring to a past "last day ofJuly". Well...August is approaching its end but the same can be said about this afternoon I am soaking in...as I take a break...from recent...daily creative and rehearsing efforts....................Quester.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Under The Catulpa Tree

Last evening I was one of seventeen poets reading at a poetry gathering in beautiful Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver.The weather was perfect for an outdoor event...with the sun goldening our surroundings...early on...and the sun set later...painting the clouds to the west. I noticed how still but light the air was...promoting a feeling of well being all round...unlikethe way it is in the oppressive humid August nights often experienced in eastern cities in Canada. We gathered in a semi-circle...with the heart shaped leaves of the widest branched catulpa tree I've ever seen...low enough above our heads...to reach up and touch them. Someone said it was like being at a picnic without the food...although it might be said the poemsread were food for our imaginations and thoughts. At poetry readings...I confess...I often get "glazed" after a while...but onthis one it was good to be present...in one of the oasis spots in Vancouver...soaking up the beauty of a late August evening...and from time to time...connecting with a poetic phrase or two........................Quester.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Priority and Momentum

For about three weeks now...preparing of songs to record... and recording them...has been my daily priority. I do my best tomulti-task...but I find focus on one thing...means it's not as much on other things. I've observed how my recording priorityhas somehow made for shorter postings on my blog...not having as much time and focus to write longer ones...which somemight say is a good idea. Anyway...as I may have said before on my blog...I'm a "creature of momentum"...and I very much have it...now...with my recording project. I hope to ride it until the cd involved is completed. My current focus on lead guitarand percussion playing...have helped them to improve...from my simply engaging in them every day...which I don't usually do...as I focus...instead...on singing and accompanying myself on the guitar. Playing lead guitar is on a different wave lengthfrom playing accompanying guitar. Instead of having something constantly going on under the song you are singing...youhave to pick your spots for laying in a figure on lead guitar...that augments rather than competes with the song you"re singing...resisting the urge to wail away constantly...throughout the song. I am enjoying recording my lead guitar parts...despite the discipline involved. Instead of only getting back to it...when I am recording...perhaps I might even keep it up...beyond the completion of this current cd.................................Quester.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Red & White & Yellow Sails

"Wavelets lapping on the shore...white wings across the mountains...Letting go of all my cargo...I receive them well...There's nothing here to chase...here...I am in no race...against the wheel of time...Out here,,,next to the sea...Creation sings to me...and Peace is mine......." .....................Quester."

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Organically Manifesting CD

Today my studio recording sessions continued. In the week since the last one I've been rehearsing lead guitar and otherparts...to be added to songs that I have already recorded voice and guitar versions of. Two weeks ago when I startedrecording songs I wasn't really planning the making of a cd...but this current project has grown organically into that. Thesedays I try to avoid harsh deadlines...so it's great when you start out not putting much pressure on yourself and somethingnatural grows out of what you're working on. This has become a modest project...now...in which via dubbing on parts toexisting tracks...I will be playing all parts added on. The dubbing of lead and rythm guitar parts is almost done as of today...so I feel the hardest part of the project is behind me. There is some more percussion to be added...and mixing of the tracks...but without any heavy pre-planning...another of twenty plus cd's is on its way.................................Quester.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Poem: Lots And Lotsa Water

We face forward on the ferry...towards blue misted mountains...I wonder what my fellow watchers are feeling...as our boat trembles forwards to the far shore...The old man and woman next to me...stare silently ahead at the dream scape...of mountains...mist...islands...and ocean...Finally he breaks the silence...and says..."Lots and lotsa water...eh?"...to which the woman at his side replies..."Yes...lots and lotsa water!"...leaving me to note...that one man's dream scape...is another man"s "lots and lotsa water'...and to wonder if I have finally discovered...the secret of long marriages.......................

Monday, August 22, 2005

Pictures Of Another Time And Place

[Chorus of song "Pictures of another time and place".Copyright--SOCAN]

"Pictures of another time and place...the memory of a fading face...going where the short days go...Voices from another night of song...childlike as they sing along...free from the time of sorrow...the song before tomorrow..."...............................Quester.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Warrior Fighting For Your Tenderness

[Verse and Chorus of song: "Warrior fighting for your tenderness"copyright SOCAN--from cd "Flowers from the ashes".]

"Pay no heed to the voices at your ears...telling you to be deaf and dumb and blind...to all that is tender...and wondrous...and fine...sifting through the wild garden of your mind...Keep on walking down the road that's chosen you...know that it was meant to take you home...become a warrior fighting for your tenderness...know though it's hard...you do not walk alone..." ..............................................................Quester.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Rhythm Makers Too Long Absent

On a Saturday afternoon I sit writing...with musical instruments circling me...as my rehearsals for recording additional partsto song and guitar versions of some of my songs...continue. There are usually guitars around me...but recently... maracas...djembe...tambourine...Iranian hand drum with rattly bits added to it's inside rim...and a door hanger...with two bells on it...that in a burst of creativity...I have begun using on a pow-wow-like chorus...have joined them. At my recording session last week...I used some of these instruments...but could tell I simply hadn't practised enough with them. Since then I've been trying to catch up with daily percussion practices. It doesn't matter how naturally rhythmic you are...even the simplest beats on a percussion instrument...are likely to falter as you try to deliver on them..,with next to no practice. Unlike the bashing around on rhythm instruments that people do at "musical jams"...where you can mess up on your beats in the name of "percussion fun"...the microphones at a recording studio...when you replay what they have recorded...will quickly tell you where you have messed up. What I play on my guitar...is complicated...relative to the simple percussion beats I want...now...to record, For my kind of playing...I tend to deliver fairly well on my guitar notes...because I play guitar almost every day. Now that I am recording rythmn parts...I simply need to apply some of my guitar dailyness...to maracas...hand drum etc. My natural rhythm sense is still there...but...it seems...my "neural pathways" through which the rhythm signals go...have become overgrown...from lack of use. So...for the next week or two...if not beyond...it's practice...practice...practice...on various rhythm makers...too long absent from my life................................Quester.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Poem: Buck-man Knows

["Buck-man" is the pejorative term used in Guyana to describe the Amerindian People]Buck-man knows...Buck-man knows the trees around him...Buck-man can retrace his way through the jungle...by the bend of a blade of grass...Buck-man can find his way by looking at the stars...Buck-man knows how to call to the birds and animals around him...Buck-man knows how to move in a small boat on the water without sinking...Buck-man knows which berries and leaves...fruits and flowers...to eat in the forest...when he is hungry...Buck-man knows how to move through the trees so silently...that his dinner won't run away...Buck-man knows how to put cunamee in the water...so as to catch many fish quickly...Buck-man knows how to make small arrows tipped with curare...or other things...so that he can hunt animals without scaring all away...Buck-man knows how to draw shapes in the sand with a stick...that make him smile...Buck-man knows how to move bare-footed and bare-skinned...through the jungle thorns...brambles...snakes...scorpions...jaguars and the rest...Buck-man knows how from looking at the sky...if the rain is coming...or if the sun will stay for a while...Buck-man knows from looking at the moon...how high the tide will be...Buck-man knows how to get better when he's sick by using...the leaves...bark...juices...fruits...of the trees and plants around him...Buck-man knows how to make all the things he needs...to live in the jungle...from what he finds in the jungle...Buck-man knows...Tell me town-man...what do you know...in your jungle...?

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Bit By Bit Does It

Did a recording session earlier today. The session didn't go as swimmingly as the one I did one song after the other at...lastweek... and finished with a large number of voice and guitar songs recorded. The tuning of the guitar I was playing today had to be fussed with for a long time before this guitar came in tune with the one on the recording I was adding a lead guitar part to...right at the start...interfering with the "flying start" I was hoping for...along with wishing the tuning gremlin wouldn't raise its head at any of my sessions. Because this happened at the start of the session...it raised the spectre of not being ableto get anything at all recorded. The good news was...I brought forward in myself the appropriate attitude needed to face times like this in the studio...not "fussing it"...and reminding myself that I simply can't expect all sessions to go exactly as I would like them to. By the end of my time at the studio...I had added many parts to a handful of ssongs...meaning that although the "mixing" of these tracks lies ahead...I have finished adding parts to them...and can move on to arranging andrehearsing another bunch of songs for another session scheduled for next week. I am in a building process with a dozensongs of mine...and bit by bit...my building them will be done...as they say in the south..."if the creeks don't rise"..........................Quester.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

One More Chance

[Verse from song "One more chance"...copyright SOCAN...from cd of the same name]"It's not just another morning...it's another chance...To do the work I'm meant to do...to live...to love...to dance...It's a gift upon the wind...that blows in from the sun...The pulse of life in everything...to lead me 'til I'm done............."....................................Quester.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Poem: Chairs With Three Wheels

The old couple...steer their chairswith three wheels...up to the edgeof the pathby the shore...in the sun...and stop...to look out at the ocean...instead of castingtheir tricycles aside...and going to play...in the beckoning sand...

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Intimations Of Autumn

It's sunny...blue skied...and good temperatured this morning...but it is mid-August...and the trees outside my morning coffee place...are carrying a warning about the turning of the seasons soon to take place...with patches of brownish redleaves appearing between their green. I grew up near the equator where there are only two seasons...rainy and dry...and nomassive changes in temperature and what falls from the sky...so...perhaps I might be a bit more conscious of the changes ofthe seasons in Canada. I have grown to like the seasons of the North...perhaps they help you not to take the fine days forgranted...offer a changing background to your life...and give you seasons to look forward to...like spring...my favourite andlikely that of most people...after winter's restrictions. Why is it that the first intimations of autumn...even on a beautiful day like today...bring a whisper of sadness from somewhere in your being?. Perhaps its about how things come then go...bloomthen fade. You let the feeling flicker through you...then...you turn your face towards... what remains of summer...and spring...really not so far away...waiting up ahead...in the mists of time...................Quester.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Song Building Time

Since the bonanza of songs recorded on August 10th...I've begun to work on lead guitar or other tracks that I can add to thesongs recorded...as I have another recording session nexr week when I can begin to add parts to voice and guitar versions ofsongs. This for me is the most enjoyable part of recording. It's an opportunity for the closet lead guitarist and percussionistto come out of the closet. These aspects of what I do musically do not get opportunities every day to express themselves... as I am usually singing and playing accompanying guitar instead. It's a fine feeling when you put on a voice and guitar cd and begin to play lead guitar to what is already in place on the tracks you're listening to. I find myself cutting loosewith improvised rippling notes at first. Yesterday I did a lot of that..."letting it hang out" with my playing. However thismorning I began keeping the over view of how I wanted the songs to sound...in mind...and started councelling myself on cutting back on all those notes I had been playing yesterday...as I don't want my lead guitar work to interfere with the singing of the songs...but I want to add parts that will deepen and widen them...instead...allowing "less" to be "more". More comingup with arrangement ideas are in the offing...including parts on hand drum, maracas etc...and...of course..getting in goodrehearsals until the day I record. Even so...on the day of recording...I know there are likely to be improvised parts played...but hopefully...by then...I should be familiar with the material I'm adding them to...and things like synchronizing my partendings with the endings of the songs already in place. I look forward to my next recording session...with the burden of recording my singing and accompanying my songs already lifted in last week's session...and being free now to play my partson guitar and percussion instruments...and hear them "grow before my ears"...until I can let them rest....................Quester.

Friday, August 12, 2005

The Carver

[Verse from song "The Carver"-Copright SOCAN]"Like a carver at...the cedar of your soul...You chip the surface woodwith your knife...And after a long time...a shape begins to grow...rising from the log of your life..."......................................Quester"

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Poem: Two Canada Geese

Two Canada geese...fly parallel to me...along the line...where the ocean meets the shore...as one cries out...and the other answers...in distressed tones...knowing that two...can never make a "V"...and looking for friends...to help them make sense of flying...within their particular cultural pattern of flight...I hear them...wishing I could help... but as much as I would love to fly...even out of formation...I have enough trouble as it is...trying to distinguish...which one is the honker...and which one is the honkee...

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

What A Day!

What a day!...and it's only four in the afternoon. I made sure I was measured...relaxed...and well exercised...yesterday...knowing what lay ahead...this morning. It has become one of the ways I prepare for a recording session...the getting myselfready...the previous day...in mind and the rest...to face the song writer's "high noon"...just you...your guitar...and yourexperience doing this before...and knowing the need to get yourself into a quiet focussed state...as you actually record...aswell within yourself as possible. I remember how in my first recordings many years ago...I sounded like "Speedy Gonzalez"...given the pressure involved...allowing that to push me to sing much faster than was good for the song. This is one of the reasons you have to be relaxed as you record...while still being quietly focussed. The one thing I didn't do yesterday...wasrehearse anything...given that by the day before...you should be as ready as you are going to be. Anyway...I did get a fewhours sleep last night...which is one of the things you hope for the night before you record. I set out for the recordingstudio at six-thirty this morning. I arrived there with the "great unknown" of what the session would bring...dampening myexpectations of how many songs...would be deposited Into my box of recorded songs...when I was through for the day...telling myself that three or four would be good...don't dwell on more than that...just leave the whole thing to unfold as itwould. To start... I picked a song that I really enjoy singing...that is not difficult to sing...called "Weeds of Time". It didn't take too long after this to begin to "roll"...although I can't make any claims about "rocking". When the false starts...and the re-doing some songs for technical or quality reasons...was done for the day...I had recorded thirteen more songs!...enough for a cd...if I choose to make one from them. I gave thanks for this bonus of productivity...and exhausted though I was...kept saying to myself..."what a day!"......................Quester.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Peace Be With You

[Chorus of song "Peace be with you"...Copyright- SOCAN]"We are leaves of the same ancient tree...Peace be with you...You were born to dance then die like me...Peace be with you...And like me you try to catch the sun...As it flies away from you...And your work is never done...Peace be with you..."...................Quester.

Monday, August 08, 2005

Sunday Night Escape

It's Sunday evening and I'm writing this as I wait to see the movie..."The Beautiful Country". All I know is that it has to do withthose in Vietnam called "bui doi"...meaning..."less than dust"...the children of Vietnamese mothers and American GI's. In thepast I've reflected on "mixed blooded-ness"...even written songs about it...so...this movie interests me. I remember how I used to smile...when friends of mine who were movie goers...would talk about films they had seen or were going to see.Perhaps then...the word "escapism" would come to mind...as I teased them about their enthusiasm for the offerings from thesilver screen...while not...myself... wanting to become too dependent on consumerism of one kind or another...and preferring to bring its opposite...creativity...to the fore. Well...that's one more thing that has changed with the passage of time. Escaping to the movies...is one of the mechanisms I deploy...when I need a change of pace having concentrated too much on my creative or project work...or need a change of scenery...or am looking to be inspired by something uplifting. Yes...it looks to me these days...that some escapism is just what I need...sometimes...so that...I can live to fight another day....[P.S. The movie was sad...gritty...and beautiful].......................Quester.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Paradox

[This is a verse from the song "Soldiers of the Wind and Rain"copyright 2005-SOCAN from cd of the same name]"We are each a riddle on this road...of sameness and differences...with a common ground that stretches out...to the deepest stars...But each one a cosmic finger print...unlike any other known...and here's where we stand alone...but joined on to a necklacemade of flames................."Quester.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Poem: North Ontario Train

Wild raspberries...welcome specks of red...in an ocean of green...Black eyed susans...still running away from home...Fire weed...pretty opportunist...staking out its pink territory...Red rock walls...sentinels along the long train line...Bracken...ancient reminder...of other times...long gone...Trout ripple...on black water creek...slow winding to its source...Broken grey tree bones...still standing...with no clear evidence of who is to blame for their brokenness...Giant grey loaves of stone disappearing into cool blue lakes...their true size...an ancient secret...Blighted evergreens...turning to rust...where they stand...Yellow and brown dappled ducklings making tiny intersecting circles...on still black waters...Who said...there was nothing to see...from a North Ontario train...and no life...after Sioux Look Out.........................?

Friday, August 05, 2005

Beginning Step To A Solution

Someone once told me when I was recommending daily journalling... [the off-line version]...that she had tried it in the past...but a lot of the time...the result was doing a lot of "whining" on her journal pages. I responded by saying that if there is oneplace where you are allowed to "whine"...it is on your private journal pages. On the one hand...most of us know how to keepour complaints about our lives...to a minimum with other people...knowing how counter-productive complaining to otherswould be. On the other hand...we do need to vent... somewhere... about the frustrations we experience in life. The place available to do this...is in the privacy of our daily journal...without the risk of people being turned off by our expressing...what we're really going through. Speaking to others about our troubles...may be looked upon as "whining"...but on our private pages...writing the same thing down... instead...because we are able to see better what ails us when it's written down rather than churning around in our heads...can be the beginning step...to finding a solution to our difficulties..................Quester.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Two Streaks

My two streaks continue...as of yesterday...129 postings over 114 days in a row on myblog...and movement exercises for 133 days in a row. I have come close to breaking both streaks several times...but so far...they go on. My exercises I've forgotten to do on occasion...until late in the evening...but once I've remembered I've been up and at it. Perhaps nearly forgetting is a good sign...as it may tie in with my not wanting to be driven...if I were driven...I likely wouldn't come so close to forgetting. My postings are in a different category...I have come close to missing them only when my computer has been down or I have difficulty getting through to my blog site. Otherwise...I have made them a priority...being at the ready to write and post them right after breakfast. Sometimes the wait for them to arrive is long. During these times I remind myself that I have written many pieces before...so thepractice at writing should be in place. As far as the subject matter goes...I know there is always a vast array of things to write about...and it is just my hopefullytemporary blankness that is holding me back...but given time it should be replacedby the "subject of the day". The possible posting doesn't always come...as patientas I may be...then...I may return to seeking it in another session that day...orcheck in my "possible postings" book...to see if there are any left that could be finally posted. It helps also that I have a large store of poems that can be deployed when needed. The wish here is not so much that the two streaks keep going...but that regardless of interruptions...writing and exercise...continue to be aregular part of my life..................Quester.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Preparing To Record

I am scheduled to do a recording session later in August. It will involve my guitar, and some more of the songs I've written. Although I've made over twenty albums of mysongs, for years the songs I've written and not yet recorded, have felt like a MountEverest, I hope to climb, but for one reason or another, can never quite reach thesummit of. Last year I was able to record fifty seven songs, most of which are now on four cd's, but a long list of songs to be recorded remains ahead of me. It is a pleasant problem to have, and yet, a bit of a haunting, raising the question, "willyou ever finally finish recording, the songs you've written you want to record?".Over the years of singing sometimes in difficult situations, it is the recording of my songs, that I've found be the toughest aspect of my song-writing work. There issomething in the past I've found daunting, especially in sessions when it's just my guitar and me, about the sound engineer saying, "take one or five", and then beingcompletely on my own to put down a version of a song for posterity, that I can livewith. I know I have to be fully present until the last note dies, making sure I deliver on the spirit of the song, and knowing the microphones will pick up anyhesitation or flubbed note I may make. I am usually a lover of spontaneity, and may yet do arecording session where I haven't rehearsed anything, but in the time before therecording session that lies ahead, I will be with my head down, first arranging, thenrehearsing, each song day after day, until I'm at ease with singing and playing,all the ones slated for recording, and am ready to put them on a master disc,never having to work on them again, and making another deposit into my "bank ofcreations".............Quester.